I just realized I haven't posted in almost a month, even though I really haven't had anything better to do.
Some things I've noticed while walking the dog on the last few recycling days: there is an alarming number of cranberry juice cocktail bottles in recycling cans. Also cups of that Activia yogurt. I know that will be me someday but...ah! I don't want to think about it yet. And in the cardboard recycling, I think this is my favorite, I've seen boxes upon boxes with the "HSN" logo on them. That's Home Shopping Network, for those of you not in the know. I can only imagine what these people's houses look like. They probably have a whole room filled with vacuum sealers and potato peeler gloves and rhinestone broaches and magic bullets and oxi clean and christmas sweaters and who knows what else.
No clue what a good transition would be here so...moving on, my dad and I have been going to the sweet L-towne gym almost every day. It's a great self-esteem booster for a 23 year old who isn't in that great of shape. One of the guys that's there a lot now calls me "Olympic girl" because I was on the treadmill next to him and he said my 9 minute miles were "the fastest he's ever seen anyone run." Score! I'm packing for Beijing as we speak. I'm sure they'd want me on the distance running team or something.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Sunday, July 6, 2008
The Dog Sitch
I wonder how many people that live here would even know what I mean by "sitch." I feel like I'm too old to be using it and I probably get made fun of using it in front of a vast majority of my friends. But on Friday I saw the movie The Brothers Solomon with Will Arnett (aka GOB from Arrested Development, #1 on my list of famous people to do) and Will Forte. It was hilarious (to my strange sense of humor, anyway), and I highly recommend it. Anyway, what I was getting at is that Gob's character refers to the elevator in his building as the 'elevates,' as in "ok, I'll hold the elevates for you!" and I loved it so so much. Enough about clipping.
Onto dogs.
So we have a dog. His name is Putty and he's a big...something. Lab mixed with maybe pit bull or some rottweiler, but not too much because he's really lanky. Our house in Tabernacle had one of those invisible fences (underground wire, the dog wears a collar that gives him a little shock when he crosses the fence). It probably sounds inhumane but I don't think it's too bad - he probably only went through it and got shocked once ever. And it was really nice to just be able to open the door and let him run around the backyard whenever he wanted. But here in L-towne we have a teeny tiny little square of a backyard with other people's backyards right next to it, no fences separating them. So it's not really feasible to just let him out. And according to the eight bazillion signs posted everywhere in the development, you're supposed to 'curb your dog' and your dog must be leashed at all times.
Since we kind of slacked off on the heel training thing because of our sweet backyard, Putty's not so good at the whole walking on a leash thing. As in, when he sees another dog or something he wants to chase, he starts to run after it, forgetting that he's attached to a person. He'll come back when you yank on him, but it's still pretty sucky. The worst part is that there are plenty of lake/pond type things and little parks with trails or open fields that would be great for him to swim in/ run around in - but they all have signs that say NO DOGS ALLOWED. How does that make any sense? The only places in the whole development that a dog would WANT to play in, and they're not allowed to go there. I'm not sure of the reasoning behind that - maybe dog-hating people don't want their walk "ruined" by a dog walking remotely near them? A little ridiculous, I think. Fortunately we found a path that leads to some non-L-towne property. It's probably trespassing, but at least there's a field and a path and a stream that Putty can run and play in not on a leash. I can understand the whole leashing thing, for the most part - I mean, there are a lot of old people here who would probably break a hip if Putty bumped into them running past or something.
Since I've seen a lot of people walking dogs, I was surprised that there was no designated dog area; then I realized that all of the people were walking small dogs. Really small dogs. Like shih tzu's and pomeranians. So they probably don't care as much about having a place for their dogs to run around and let off some energy. Some of them don't even want their dogs to walk at all, it seems - I saw a lady walking two little pomeranians, though I use the term "walking" loosely. She was walking but the dogs were rolling. Yup, she was pushing them in a little doggie stroller. Seriously? I was confused and amused at the same time. Mostly amused. If I had been walking by instead of driving by I probably would have stopped to ask her about it. Maybe another time.
That's about it for now, but I think I'm going to try out the gym tomorrow. I have to go with my dad, though, because since I'm not a resident I'm not allowed in there without him. They probably think I'll ruin all their equipment or something.
Onto dogs.
So we have a dog. His name is Putty and he's a big...something. Lab mixed with maybe pit bull or some rottweiler, but not too much because he's really lanky. Our house in Tabernacle had one of those invisible fences (underground wire, the dog wears a collar that gives him a little shock when he crosses the fence). It probably sounds inhumane but I don't think it's too bad - he probably only went through it and got shocked once ever. And it was really nice to just be able to open the door and let him run around the backyard whenever he wanted. But here in L-towne we have a teeny tiny little square of a backyard with other people's backyards right next to it, no fences separating them. So it's not really feasible to just let him out. And according to the eight bazillion signs posted everywhere in the development, you're supposed to 'curb your dog' and your dog must be leashed at all times.
Since we kind of slacked off on the heel training thing because of our sweet backyard, Putty's not so good at the whole walking on a leash thing. As in, when he sees another dog or something he wants to chase, he starts to run after it, forgetting that he's attached to a person. He'll come back when you yank on him, but it's still pretty sucky. The worst part is that there are plenty of lake/pond type things and little parks with trails or open fields that would be great for him to swim in/ run around in - but they all have signs that say NO DOGS ALLOWED. How does that make any sense? The only places in the whole development that a dog would WANT to play in, and they're not allowed to go there. I'm not sure of the reasoning behind that - maybe dog-hating people don't want their walk "ruined" by a dog walking remotely near them? A little ridiculous, I think. Fortunately we found a path that leads to some non-L-towne property. It's probably trespassing, but at least there's a field and a path and a stream that Putty can run and play in not on a leash. I can understand the whole leashing thing, for the most part - I mean, there are a lot of old people here who would probably break a hip if Putty bumped into them running past or something.
Since I've seen a lot of people walking dogs, I was surprised that there was no designated dog area; then I realized that all of the people were walking small dogs. Really small dogs. Like shih tzu's and pomeranians. So they probably don't care as much about having a place for their dogs to run around and let off some energy. Some of them don't even want their dogs to walk at all, it seems - I saw a lady walking two little pomeranians, though I use the term "walking" loosely. She was walking but the dogs were rolling. Yup, she was pushing them in a little doggie stroller. Seriously? I was confused and amused at the same time. Mostly amused. If I had been walking by instead of driving by I probably would have stopped to ask her about it. Maybe another time.
That's about it for now, but I think I'm going to try out the gym tomorrow. I have to go with my dad, though, because since I'm not a resident I'm not allowed in there without him. They probably think I'll ruin all their equipment or something.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
First Impressions
Question #1: Why is a 23 year old graduate student living in a 55+ retirement community?
Excellent question. I'm still not sure of the answer myself, but I hope that if nothing else, living in Leisuretowne (or L-Towne, the hip nickname my sister and I have given it) will give me some good stories. In any case, here's some background:
My mom and dad, who are a nurse and teacher respectively, decided that they wanted to move out of our house in Tabernacle, NJ after my sister and I went to college. Taxes there are too high, etc. etc. They want to move to... Virginia, or West Virginia, or any number of other states depending on the day. After our house was on the market for a year, someone finally bought it (hooray!). But since my parents still don't know where they want to move, they decided to rent a house in the area for a year so they could stay at their current jobs while looking at houses. Fortunately, they were able to find a year-long rental that's less than 10 minutes from our house in Tabernacle that was pretty affordable and allows pets. And said rental house is in, you guessed it, Leisuretowne! L-towne is a sort-of gated community in Southampton, NJ. By sort-of gated, I mean that they have guards at the front entrance but the roads in it are still township roads. And there's no actual gate. At least one person in each residence has to be over 55, and I'm pretty sure that the rule is you can have a child living with you if he/she is over 18. That's where I come in!
I'm in an English MA/PhD program at Indiana University right now, but I decided that since is probably the only free summer I'll have for...ever, possibly, I wanted to spend one last summer in Jersey. Even if it is in a retirement community.
After the very first day that I went over to the rental house with my mom to start moving stuff in (their lease started June 1 and they don't have to be out of our house until this coming Thursday), I knew that I would probably get some hilarious stories over the course of the next two months. I quickly learned that the majority of residents stay inside during the day in the summer; apparently the streets are crowded from 3-6am, though. Awesome. Even though L-towne allows pets, there are "NO DOG" signs around basically any area that a dog would want to walk or play in. There are rules about how many lawn ornaments you can have, where you can park, where you can walk, etc. etc. It seems like a lot of the residents enjoy looking for rule-breakers. I found the community's website and was very excited to see that they post the Leisuretowne Association meeting minutes online here. They're a pretty funny read if you're bored. Particularly the "Statements from the Audience for the Good of the Association" section. LOTS of people complaining about ridiculous stuff.
So I don't really have any good stories yet, but I know they're coming! Once we're done moving in there I won't have much to do except check out the L-towne scene. My plan is to immerse myself in the lifestyle as much as possible - I'm considering participating in Water Aerobics, if they'll let me! You're jealous, I know. I would be too. Bottom line - I'll probably update this a lot with more than you'll ever want to / need to know about Leisuretowne and its characters.
Excellent question. I'm still not sure of the answer myself, but I hope that if nothing else, living in Leisuretowne (or L-Towne, the hip nickname my sister and I have given it) will give me some good stories. In any case, here's some background:
My mom and dad, who are a nurse and teacher respectively, decided that they wanted to move out of our house in Tabernacle, NJ after my sister and I went to college. Taxes there are too high, etc. etc. They want to move to... Virginia, or West Virginia, or any number of other states depending on the day. After our house was on the market for a year, someone finally bought it (hooray!). But since my parents still don't know where they want to move, they decided to rent a house in the area for a year so they could stay at their current jobs while looking at houses. Fortunately, they were able to find a year-long rental that's less than 10 minutes from our house in Tabernacle that was pretty affordable and allows pets. And said rental house is in, you guessed it, Leisuretowne! L-towne is a sort-of gated community in Southampton, NJ. By sort-of gated, I mean that they have guards at the front entrance but the roads in it are still township roads. And there's no actual gate. At least one person in each residence has to be over 55, and I'm pretty sure that the rule is you can have a child living with you if he/she is over 18. That's where I come in!
I'm in an English MA/PhD program at Indiana University right now, but I decided that since is probably the only free summer I'll have for...ever, possibly, I wanted to spend one last summer in Jersey. Even if it is in a retirement community.
After the very first day that I went over to the rental house with my mom to start moving stuff in (their lease started June 1 and they don't have to be out of our house until this coming Thursday), I knew that I would probably get some hilarious stories over the course of the next two months. I quickly learned that the majority of residents stay inside during the day in the summer; apparently the streets are crowded from 3-6am, though. Awesome. Even though L-towne allows pets, there are "NO DOG" signs around basically any area that a dog would want to walk or play in. There are rules about how many lawn ornaments you can have, where you can park, where you can walk, etc. etc. It seems like a lot of the residents enjoy looking for rule-breakers. I found the community's website and was very excited to see that they post the Leisuretowne Association meeting minutes online here. They're a pretty funny read if you're bored. Particularly the "Statements from the Audience for the Good of the Association" section. LOTS of people complaining about ridiculous stuff.
So I don't really have any good stories yet, but I know they're coming! Once we're done moving in there I won't have much to do except check out the L-towne scene. My plan is to immerse myself in the lifestyle as much as possible - I'm considering participating in Water Aerobics, if they'll let me! You're jealous, I know. I would be too. Bottom line - I'll probably update this a lot with more than you'll ever want to / need to know about Leisuretowne and its characters.
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